Diseases of the kidneys and of the spleen, hemorrhagic diseases / by H. Senator and M. Litten ; edited, with additions by James B. Herrick ; authorized translation from the German, under the editorial supervison of Alfred Stengel.
- Hermann Senator
- Date:
- 1905
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Diseases of the kidneys and of the spleen, hemorrhagic diseases / by H. Senator and M. Litten ; edited, with additions by James B. Herrick ; authorized translation from the German, under the editorial supervison of Alfred Stengel. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![dropsy owe their origin to a disease of the kidney manifesting itself by the presence of albnmin in the urine. The investigation of this class of diseases at once engaged the zealous attention of physicians, who eagerly availed themselves of the microscopic and chemical methods of examination which were being rapidly developed at that time. The knowledge of the minute structure of the kidneys and of their function expanded at a rate hitherto unheard of, and along with it the field of renal pathology. The progress in the latter department served to increase our knowl- edge not only of the kidney diseases that were at first grouped under the name of Bright's disease, and later divided into a number of different forms, but also of the other affections of the kidney, such as tumors, displacements, and the like. The pathology of the kidneys, which up to that time had been treated in a most step-motherly fashion, now began to form the subject of detailed essays and monographs. The first systematic treatise on diseases of the kidneys is found in P. F. O. Rayer's classic work in three volumes, entitled TraiU des maladies des reins, etc., Paris, 1839—41. He was followed in England by G. John- son, On the Diseases of the Kidney, etc., London, 1852 ; in Ger- many by Julius Vogel, Krankheiten der harnbereitenden Organe, in Virchoiv's Handbuch der speciellen Pathologie, vol. vi., Erlangen, 1856-65 ; and especially by S. Rosenstein, Die Pathologie und Ther- apie der Nierenkrankheiten, ed. i., Berlin, 1863, and ed. iv., 1894. These authors were followed by a large number of other workers, and to-day the literature on diseases of the kidneys in general is fully abreast of that pertaining to other diseases. [It will well repay the student to read Bright's original papers and see how our later knowledge of diseases of the kidney really started. One is surprised to note the accuracy of the clinical observations and of the postmortem records. Bright's plates, too, showing pathologic con- ditions—like those in Rayer's Atlas—are faithful and artistic portrai- tures, the excellence of which has seldom been surpassed.—Ed.] As the kidneys are hidden deep within the tissues, they are not readily accessible to direct examination by inspection and palpation or other physical methods, and the changes in the urine are thei'efore of the greatest importance for the recognition of renal disease. Some of these changes belong only to certain diseases, others are common to all, or, at least, a large number of renal affections. Thus the excretion of albumin or blood in the urine—albuminuria, hematuria—may occur in any disease of the kidneys; and certain phenomena and pathologic condi- tions, such as urinary tube casts, dropsy, uremia, and the changes in the vascular apparatus, are especially characteristic of kidney disease. In order to avoid repetition in the description of the individual diseases, I shall begin with a general description of these common symptoms or effects of renal disease, and shall then discuss a number of other morbid conditions which also manifest themselves by conspicuous changes in the urine, and which, while they do not bear the same causal relation to kidney disease as the above symptoms, cannot, in the present state of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21167886_0024.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
